The crypto industry is not any stranger to controversy, but only just a few projects have managed more examination than Sam Altman's world, formerly often called WorldCoin.
The promise to envision the distinctiveness of man through Iris and distribute his WLD token worldwide positions the world as an instrument for financial inclusion. However, critics argue that the biometric methods of the project are invasively, excessively centralized and are in contradiction to the ethos of decentralization and digital privacy.
The focus of criticism is that biometric identity systems cannot really be decentralized in the event that they depend on proprietary hardware, closed authentication methods and centralized control over data pipelines.
“Decentralization shouldn’t be only a technical architecture,” Shaady El Damaty, co -founder of the Holonym Foundation, told cointelegraph. “It is a philosophy that prioritizes user control, privacy and self -willingness. The biometric model of the world is inherent in contradiction to this ethos.”
El Damaty argued that despite using tools reminiscent of MultiParty Computation (MPC) and Zero-Knowledge (ZK) Proofs, trust within the user-defined hardware and central code provision that undermines decentralization that she claims for an advocate.
“This is the design to realize their goals, to obviously discover individual people. This concentration of power risks creates a single point of failure and control, which undermines the promise of decentralization,” he said.
When a spokesman for World was a comment, he pushed back against these claims. “World doesn’t use a centralized biometric infrastructure,” she said, adding that the world app shouldn’t be customer-specific, which implies that users entertain their digital assets and their world IDs.
After the project, as soon because the ORB generates an iris code, the “Iris photo is shipped to your phone as an end-to-end encryption data package and immediately deleted from the ball”. The Iris code, she claimed, is processed with anonymizing multi -partical calculation in order that “no personal data is stored”.
The disclosure of the world when it comes to personal custody. Source: world
Evin McMullen, co -plug by Privado ID and billion.Network, said that the world's biometric model shouldn’t be “inherently incompatible” with the decentralization of “naturally incompatible”, but is faced with some challenges within the implementation of information centralization, confidence assumptions and governance.
A pattern of technology crossing?
El Damaty also pulled a parallel between Opena's large scale of “unintentional user data” and the worldwide collection of biometric information.
He argued that each reflect a pattern of aggressive data acquisition that was classified as innovation, and warned that such practices take the danger of eroding privacy and normalizing surveillance under the banner of progress.
“The irony here is difficult to overlook,” said El Damaty. “Openai has created its basis by scraping large quantities of unintentional user data for the training of its models, and now WorldCoin has the identical aggressive data acquisition approach to the sphere of biometric identity.”
In 2023, an Openai and Microsoft class motion submitted in California accused 300 billion words from the Internet without scraping without consent, including personal data from hundreds of thousands of users, reminiscent of B. children.
In 2024, a coalition of Canadian media, including the Canadian Press and the CBC, sued Openai since it had used its content without permission to coach Chatgpt, and claimed copyright infringement.
However, the world rejects this comparison and emphasizes that it’s a separate unit of Openai. The company said that it neither sells or saves personal data, using technologies for data protection administrations reminiscent of multi-party calculations and nil knowledge.
The exam also extends to the worldwide user on board. The project says that it guarantees a declaration of consent by translated guides, an in-app learning module, brochures and an auxiliary center.
However, critics remain skeptical. “People in developing countries, the world … have mainly sought to bribe at this point and understand the risks related to the sale of this personal data,” warned El Damaty.
Several global supervisory authorities have pushed back worldwide operations since their introduction in July 2023, and governments reminiscent of Germany, Kenya and Brazil expressed concerns about potential risks for the safety of the biometric data of the users.
In the recent setback, the corporate in Indonesia faced challenges after the local supervisory authorities temporarily suspended its registration certificates on May 5.
The risk of digital exclusion
Since biometric systems just like the world of the world win, questions arise about their long -term effects. While the corporate promotes its model as inclusive, critics say that the dependence on Iris scans to develop services could deepen global inequality.
“When biometric data is a prerequisite for access to basic services, it effectively creates a two -stage society,” said El Damaty. “Those who were ready (or forced) to provide up their most sensitive information are given … while those that refuse … are excluded.”
World claimed that his protocol doesn’t require a biometric registration for fundamental participation. “You can still use an unconfirmed world for some purposes, even in case you don’t visit ORB,” it says, adding that the ZKPS system uses to stop linking on certain ID or biometric data.
There are also concerns that the world could grow to be a surveillance instrument – especially in authoritarian regimens – by centralizing biometric data in a way that pulls abuse by powerful actors.
World rejects these claims and claims that his ID protocol “Open Source, shouldn’t be permitted” and is designed in such a way that even government applications cannot connect the activity of a user to your biometric data.
The debate also extends to governance. While World says that his protocol results in greater decentralization and that open source contributions and the governance section of his white paper emphasize-argument that a smart user possession continues to be missing.
“We should create systems that enable individuals to prove their humanity without creating central repository of biometric or personal data,” said El Damaty. “This means taking zero-knowledge proofs, decentralized governance and open standards under consideration, enable individuals and never firms.”
The need for secure identity systems
The urgency behind the event of secure identity systems shouldn’t be unfounded. If artificial intelligence becomes more demanding, the boundaries between human and non -human actors are blurred online.
“The risks related to AI and identity are usually not limited to a form of government system or region,” said McMullen from Privado ID. She claimed that digital ecosystems are exposed to growing threats for each people and AI agents – from misinformation and fraud to national security gaps.
“This is a national nightmare for security, through which non-accountable, non-verifiable non-human actors are in a position to take care of global systems and networks, and Legacy systems are usually not built for some of these review and context logic,” added McMullen.
